


An Antichrist Walks Into A Bar

by the_moonmoth



Series: Chaos Theory [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alcohol, Childhood Memories, M/M, Mental Health Issues, The Dowlings Are Terrible Parents, brits drink a lot of tea, even goth american-born ones, warlock tries to piece together his weird childhood, yes all brits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-27 21:42:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21125696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_moonmoth/pseuds/the_moonmoth
Summary: “I’m not…” Warlock started to say, but who was he kidding, he had no idea how to end that sentence. Because despite himself he was kind of fascinated by what this wholesome, tousle-haired, slightly frightening country boy wanted with him.Warlock celebrates his 19th birthday alone, until an irritatingly persistent Adam interrupts his mope-fest.





	An Antichrist Walks Into A Bar

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Заходит Антихрист в бар](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22711069) by [Igrain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Igrain/pseuds/Igrain)

> This was supposed to be entry J (making a speech/toast) from the [alphabet prompt list I've been working my way down](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20656226/chapters/49053740), but it grew so long (and has so much sequel potential) that I decided to give it its own entry. I did not expect Warlock, that little shit, to own my heart the way he has, but here we are. Both Warlock and Adam's looks are heavily inspired by [this art](https://lycoris-lily.tumblr.com/post/187967318726/concept-art-i-guess-of-the-antichrists-hc) by @lycoris-lily on tumblr.
> 
> ETA 11/7/19: yes, okay, there is a sequel in the works

**An Antichrist Walks Into A Bar**

On the morning of his 19th birthday, Warlock Dowling made himself a cup of tea. This was not, in and of itself, unusual, but the chintzy little teacup and saucer he’d picked up at Cancer Research for a quid was. Red and orange roses weren’t generally his aesthetic, but hey, at least it was chipped. Hell, he was all about subverting expectations these days -- maybe he’d start a collection. Could’ve definitely done with a teapot, if he was going to do this properly. Nanny would’ve approved of that, he thought. Then, the last dregs of his teenage fuck-you attitude bubbling to the surface, he decided that no, he did not in fact need a teapot, and stuck a Pyrex jug full of cold water and a couple of teabags into the microwave.

_There, Nanny,_ he thought nastily. _How’s that?_

_And what do we tell The Man?_ Nanny’s voice floated up through the years. _Stick it! _Young Warlock chorused back gleefully. But those kinds of conversations had never happened, his old therapist had been quite clear on that. Manifestation of his unconscious desire for rebellion, or some shit like that. Like it had ever been an _unconscious_ desire, but whatever, the old fart was probably right. What kind of respectable Nanny would teach a little kid something like that? And Nanny Ashtoreth had been nothing if not respectable. 

At least, Warlock remembered respecting her.

He still poured the tea (weirdly fizzy and tasting slightly scorched) into his chipped, chintzy teacup, enjoying the soft clink of the teaspoon as he stirred in the milk, and sat down at the empty kitchen table, and tried not to think about how quiet the house was.

_On the morning of his 6th birthday, Nanny woke Warlock early and ushered him quietly downstairs in his dressing gown and slippers, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The house was so quiet it was like a dream (so much so that years later Warlock would wonder if it had really happened that way) watery sunlight slanting in through the kitchen windows, and then there was Brother Francis, wind-burned cheeks and huge smile, holding a small cake with six candles flickering on top. They sang Happy Birthday and he clung to Nanny’s skirt, overwhelmed and unsure what to do, her warm hand a reassuring weight on the back of his neck, and then they all sat down together, cups of tea for the grown ups, glass of milk for Warlock, and had cake for breakfast. The rest of the day went as usual, but that lovely, dream-like morning carried him through, and he went to bed happy, clutching the book Brother Francis had given him, and the stuffed toy from Nanny._

Warlock still remembered that toy. It’d been a snake. Henry Hiss, he’d called it. He’d made the mistake of taking it to boarding school with him, once he turned 11, and had come back to his room one evening to find the scene of a fluffy disembowelment on his bed. He’d laughed along with the others at the time. Hadn’t really been that funny, though.

Other people sucked. Or at least, other rich people sucked. One of the reasons he’d picked Brighton for uni. He had actual friends, here. Not that you’d know it this morning.

Fuck him, really. It was the middle of the summer holidays and it wasn’t like he’d actually told any of his housemates that his birthday was coming up, but the pit of his stomach was still hollow with loneliness to be here by himself. _Just like old times,_ he thought. _After Nanny left._ He’d just sort of assumed someone would still be around to celebrate with him. How stupid not to realise that other people actually wanted to go home at the end of the term. 

So here he was, drinking his tea, all alone in his student house and kicking off his birthday celebrations by… was he honouring Nanny Ashtoreth, or giving her the finger? Well, if he contained multitudes, as that pot-head he sometimes sat next to in lectures was always saying, then he could do both. Why not?

_On the morning of his 7th birthday, Warlock got a real cup of tea with his cake, in one of the fancy teacup and saucers from the set of good china the staff weren’t supposed to use, and decided this tradition was the best thing ever (years later he thought he still remembered Brother Francis muttering something about bouncing off the walls for the rest of the day, and Nanny smiling and saying, precisely, but who the hell knew, really). When’s your birthday, Nanny? he asked, because she’d been with him almost two years now and it suddenly occurred to him, as he sipped his tea like a grown up, that he’d never got _her_ anything. Oh, they don’t give you birthdays when you’re as old as me, wee one, she replied. (Years later, he was fairly certain that conversation was a real one, because of the smile Brother Francis had failed to hide behind his teacup, and because Warlock was moderately certain in retrospect there’d been something going on there, and he kind of hoped they’d run off together when they both left so abruptly -- when he wasn’t wishing that a sudden tragic illness was the reason Nanny couldn’t write or call). Don’t worry, young master, Brother Francis said. You can pick your Nanny some flowers in the garden this morning, if you’d like. Now wouldn’t that be a kind gesture._

It wasn’t like he didn’t know he had a fair amount of displaced anger at his parents. He knew it. But seeing as he had plenty of regular anger to direct at them, too, he didn’t see the hurt in spreading it around. And it wasn’t like he’d ever properly celebrated with either of his parents, anyway. Those over-planned parties with John Lewis gift lists and too many security guards did _not_ count. Warlock spared a thought for how things might be different now, if he’d gone home after a year apart, but he honestly couldn’t see how anything would’ve changed, just probably been a bit more awkward. He knew his mom was still pissed that he hadn’t set his ambitions any higher than the University of Brighton -- she’d said as much, lamenting over text that he wasn’t stretching himself. And his dad was probably still grappling with his Y-chromosome rage over not being able to just buy Warlock’s way in to Cambridge, not understanding -- or caring -- that they didn’t do that sort of thing anymore, no not even for someone who knew the Queen. Bloody Americans. Nevermind that Warlock had been desperate to actually earn a qualification by himself, without having to pay a tutor just to scape by, and fuck his A-levels, anyway.

And Brighton was… well, Brighton, and it suited Warlock so well that he’d successfully weaned off his antidepressants for the first time since he was 14. So fuck them, too. He was happy here. Or probably as close to happy as an over-priveleged fuck-up like him was ever going to get. Especially on his birthday.

*

He pissed around in his pyjamas for most of the day, because why not? Played on his Switch, ignored the great big Amazon parcel that his parents had apparently had someone send him instead of a phone call. Round about early evening, he finally got hungry enough for something other than toast and Pot Noodles that he decided to drag himself out. Warlock wasn’t much of an eater, he just tended to forget a lot of the time -- product of never having had to feed himself, after boarding school and a live-in cook, probably, but whatever, he’d pretty much perfected the skinny waif look anyway. But it was his birthday, so maybe there should be, like, a kebab or something. Or maybe he just wanted to get out of the silent house for a bit. Whatever.

_His 8th birthday was a weekday, and so his party wouldn’t be for several days, yet. That was okay, because it meant he got the entire day with Nanny and Brother Francis, a picnic out in a field by a river. He won’t remember how they got there in years to come, but it was idyllic and Warlock ran back and forth between the picnic blanket and the riverbank, trousers rolled up to his knees as he waded in with his fishing net at Brother Francis’s side, then rushed back to show Nanny what he’d got in his jam jar this time. Later, they shared tea from a thermos and cucumber sandwiches and cake, and then both of them read to him as the sun beat down, because Warlock loved books. Horrible Histories from Nanny, some kind of children’s poetry from Brother Francis. He lay on the picnic blanket, kicking his feet in the air as he drew a picture of the water boatman he’d caught earlier, listening to their voices and the way their accents smoothed and evened out as they read._

So Warlock got up, and got dressed, and because it was his birthday, took special pains not to dress _up_. He’d spent his entire life to age 18 buttoned up in school uniforms and suits and smart clothes, so now he very consciously and gleefully wore drainpipe jeans with rips in them that sagged in the crotch and showed his boxers in the back, because he could. His hair was getting long again, and shaggy from lack of care, and he was especially fond of picturing his dad’s expression when he wore it tied back in a bun, and so he did that too in the spirit of the day. And everything was black, from his eye-liner right down to the holey socks he was wearing under his Docs, because he was a maths undergrad and had been a bookworm once (inhaling whatever he could get his hands on in the shelter of the old gardener’s shed) and he subscribed wholeheartedly to the Ian Malcolm school of style and general assholery. It was a pretty warm evening; Warlock pulled on his leather coat nonetheless.

*

Of course he ended up getting slowly drunk by himself in the sticky back corner of a half-empty Wetherspoons. It was the inevitable end to a miserable day, and Warlock apparently couldn’t turn down the opportunity to punish himself with cheap lager. He was busy glaring moodily into the middle distance when the other boy came in, noticeable only for how… normal he was. Normal wasn’t a thing you saw a lot of in the night life around here, especially in the summer with the student body largely absent. But there he was, ordering his drink at the bar with his blond curly hair and his blue jeans and his fucking _mac_ for fuck’s sake, holding himself with the kind of confidence and self-posession that Warlock could barely fantasise about. And then he took his drink (a bottle of WKD? Really? Did they even still _sell_ that?), leaned back against the bar, scanned the room, and _smiled_ at Warlock.

_Smile, darling, Nanny said on the morning of his 9th birthday. There was the flash, and the cake, and the candles, the smell of steaming tea, and Warlock had never been good at posing for the camera despite the copious practise he’d had, but for some reason this time it was easy. (Years later he found the photo in a box of boyish treasures, and almost ripped it up just to make the feelings stop, though he didn’t.) Nanny always took the best pictures of him, he’d heard his mom say so, but something told him she wouldn’t be showing this one to anyone but him._

“Hi, I’m Adam,” the boy said, sitting down at Warlock’s table, and not even opposite him, no, he sat on the adjacent side of the square, a mere 90-degrees away, the absolute nerve.

“If you say so,” Warlock said. Then, because he’d always enjoyed being an asshole, added, “Plenty of other tables you could piss off to, you know. Ones without _people_ sitting at them.”

“You want me to leave?” The boy -- Adam -- looked mildly amused and not at all put off.

“Fairly certain that was the strong implication there, yeah.”

“Oh, sorry,” Adam said, then took a sip of his drink and stayed exactly where he was. It was kind of admirable, Warlock had to admit, that level of chutzpah. 

“What are you drinking that junk for, anyway?” Warlock said despite himself, watching in disgust.

Adam looked at his bottle. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s blue.” 

Adam shrugged unconcernedly. “Tastes good,” he said. “Are you American? You sound a bit American.”

Warlock sighed, resigning himself to having a conversation. “What about it?” He bit his lip. His accent always came out when he was anxious, and it had twanged unpleasantly just then.

“Huh,” Adam said. “I always wanted to go there. Always seemed very romantic.”

Warlock snorted. “It’s not.”

“Oh, well, I s’pose not right now.”

That was an understatement. America was a fucking third world country right now, mired in corruption and run by a mentally unstable despot (who his dad just happened to work for, wasn't that a can of worms), but Europeans were always so eager to rub his face in it and he didn’t really feel like sliding down that particular shame spiral tonight.

“Why’re you here?” Warlock asked, still vaguely hoping his special brand of prickly bluntness would be sufficiently off-putting to scare goldilocks away.

“In Brighton?”

“Brighton, this pub, this table bothering the unsuspecting townsfolk.”

“You live here? Good to know,” Adam said, with a mischievous sort of twinkle that should have made Warlock want to throw up in his mouth, but in reality was weirdly appealing. “I’m visiting my godfathers, they live in a little village nearby. Slipped out for a bit of excitement since it’s my birthday and all.”

Huh, a couple of old queers in one of the villages around here? Brighton and Hove was one thing, but as soon as you got out onto the South Downs… Maybe that explained where Adam got his balls from. You had to have thick skin, to be different in the countryside (something Warlock had learned too late). Then his ears caught up with that last bit.

“Wait. It’s my birthday, too.” It slipped out before he could stop himself.

“You never,” Adam said gravely. “Fancy that.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Why were you drinking alone, then?”

Warlock gave a moment’s consideration to outright lying, but the energy involved, he couldn’t be bothered. He shrugged and looked away across the pub. “Natural sadsack,” he admitted.

Adam laughed. 

Warlock’s attention snapped back to him, and he stared. It wasn’t that Adam was particularly pretty, because he wasn’t -- too much hair, mouth too full and too red, eyes too blue, almost like a little kid’s drawing of a handsome prince -- but when he laughed like that, looking as though the delight had been startled out of him, _god _he was attractive.

“Good job I came along then, really,” Adam said, eyes dancing.

“Oh yeah, you can tell how thrilled I am,” Warlock said, but he was losing his sharp edge, he could feel it in the way his traitor mouth wanted to twitch nervously into a smile.

They talked some more. Or, mostly Adam talked, and sometimes asked Warlock questions, listening to his curt answers with a warm focus that made Warlock feel like he was the center of the universe. It was utterly unbalancing. He hated it. He didn’t walk away any further than the bar to get a refill.

Adam talked about his parents and the village in Oxfordshire he’d grown up in, and how it had the best apple trees in the country. He talked about his dog, and his car, and his favourite football team. His life sounded just as mediocre as every other 19 year old Warlock knew, himself included, but then why was he so interesting? Warlock realised, after an hour or so, that he couldn't take his eyes off him. And Adam, as he talked, so utterly at ease with himself and the world, let his hand rest on the table by Warlock's, brushing their fingers together every time he gestured, which was quite a lot as it happened, until he just casually laid his hand on top of Warlock's, still chattering away, and then, as Warlock watched in detached fascination, laced their fingers together.

“What… are you doing?” Warlock asked.

“Oh,” Adam said, glancing down at their hands before meeting Warlock’s eye again, that uncomfortably heavy gaze, the weight of his attention. “I’m hitting on you.”

Warlock licked his dry lips.

“Is that… okay?” Adam didn’t so much sound unsure as going through the motions of _appearing_ unsure, because it was the done thing. Warlock had a feeling that Adam was the type of bloke who’d never once felt unsure in his life.

“I’m not…” Warlock started to say, but who was he kidding, he had no idea how to end that sentence. Because despite himself he _was_ kind of fascinated by what this wholesome, tousle-haired, slightly frightening country boy wanted with him, and he wasn’t so much gay as open to anything (boarding school could do that to you, true, but there were also those old pictures of Nanny he’d found when he was packing up his things last summer, and been surprised to see a complete absence of breasts and more than a hint of stubble beneath the immaculate make up, so maybe, despite all odds, he’d been raised to tolerance, too). And besides, Adam was giving him a grin that might’ve been called knowing but _felt_ more like his skull was nothing but clingfilm to Adam’s bright and curious gaze.

"I think you are," Adam said, but he didn't push it, to Warlock's relief and regret, letting go of Warlock’s hand and slouching back in his chair with a kind of louche grace that made Warlock's mouth go dry.

“Don’t you… don’t you even want to know my name, first?” Warlock said into the silence that followed, hating how small his voice sounded. Adam started, as though surprised, and Warlock frowned. Then Adam sat forward once more, elbows on the table, doing that thing again, the unnerving thing, where he seemed to pour all of his focus on Warlock.

“I do,” Adam said. And, ugh, this was always the worst part about meeting new people. He’d toyed with changing his name more than once, but had never found anything that felt right. His dad called him Wally sometimes. He hated that.

“If you laugh, I’m out of here,” he warned Adam.

“I won’t,” Adam said seriously. “I promise.”

“Scout’s honour? You look like you were a scout.”

That mischievous smirk again, but with a darker edge that Warlock would be thinking about long after they’d parted ways. “I wasn’t.”

“Fine,” Warlock sighed, reaching for familiar apathy, not really getting there. “It’s Warlock. Warlock Dowling.”

“Adam Young,” said Adam without missing a beat, and held out his hand. Warlock hesitated, and then shook it, and when Adam went to draw back after, he held on, not tight, not a demand, but it was enough for Adam to give him a smile like sunshine, and lower their hands to the table, fingers curled around each other.

_Nanny held his hand as they walked downstairs on the morning of his 10th birthday. Warlock’s mom said he was too old for that kind of thing now, whispering through her teeth as her eyes skittered around in embarrassment, and he couldn’t remember his dad ever doing it at all, but Nanny said he’d never be too old to hold her hand, and so he still sometimes did, when there was no one else around. The kitchen looked smaller these days, but Nanny never changed, and there was comfort in that. Brother Francis, too. He was getting too old to have a Nanny, Warlock knew that even though no one had said it. All of his mom’s friends were letting theirs go, but neither Mom nor Nanny nor anyone else had said anything about her going, and so he wasn’t going to worry about it, especially today. (Years later, he would understand that this was the last birthday he had actually enjoyed. There would be some riots after this one, the kind he’d thought were fun at the time -- the food fight at his 11th, the smuggled-in booze at his 15th -- but looking back, no, those quiet mornings with Nanny and Brother Francis had been something better.) He wasn’t going to worry about it, but if the cake tasted better, the tea sweeter, if he smiled harder in the quiet of the morning light when it was just the three of them celebrating together, then that was up to him. _

The barman rang the bell for last orders and Adam gave Warlock a strange sideways look.

“You should come over tomorrow,” he said. “Meet my godfathers. I know they’d love to say hello.”

Warlock stared. He couldn’t remember ever having been invited to meet someone’s family, not since playdates had stopped being a thing. “I don’t think…”

“Come on, what else are you going to do?” Adam said, a genuinely winning look on his face, and was this just how he went through the world, cajoling everyone along until he got what he wanted? Probably, but that didn’t explain what the fuck he might want with Warlock.

“I’ve got plans,” Warlock said, irritated (at least, it felt like irritation). “Pyjamas, Pot Noodle, Netflix. Natural sadsack, remember?”

“Yeah but, get this, if you come over, there’ll be…” Adam waggled -- honest to god _waggled_ \-- his eyebrows, and Warlock hated himself intensely for finding it so charming… “Tea and cake.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, I know. Their idea of fun is Old People fun, but…” he angled his head, eyes intense, and for a moment it was as though he was staring through Warlock soul. “Who doesn’t like cake?”

“Uh,” Warlock said weakly. He thought of his chipped china teacup and saucer. He thought of an empty kitchen in the morning light, a cake with candles baked just for him. Old people fun? Shit, a pair of queers living in a country village sounded punk as fuck, however old they were. And Adam would be there. And it… well, as he’d realised lately, not everyone hated their families, so maybe it’d be okay. He’d had family he hadn’t hated, once. Maybe he missed that, a little. A very little.

“I guess. Sounds… sounds nice,” Warlock said, viciously ignoring the tightness in his throat.

“Great,” Adam said, smiling that breathtaking, sunny smile again. “Give me your number, I’ll text you the address.” And when that was done, he looked regretfully at his almost-empty bottle, and said, “Probably better get going, but, birthday toast?”

“Sure,” said Warlock, dizzy somehow. Dizzy from the lager, that was it. “Happy birthday, Adam Young.”

“Happy birthday, Warlock Dowling.”

They clinked, and drank, and then Adam grinned that awful (beautiful) knowing grin, and leaned forward, tugging lightly on their still-joined hands, and kissed Warlock lightly on the lips.

“See you tomorrow,” Adam said, getting up. Warlock said nothing, and watched him leave, and the place got dimmer, without him.

Warlock Dowling touched his mouth, and smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted [here on tumblr](https://themoonmothwrites.tumblr.com/post/188505316978/fic-an-antichrist-walks-into-a-bar). Comments and re-blogs give me life <3


End file.
